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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27211501">The Boys: Domestic AU</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat'>TopHat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Boys (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No Powers, Domestic, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:29:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27211501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Proof that you don't need to literally explode a woman in the first episode to have a story worth telling.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Becca Butcher/Billy Butcher, Hughie Campbell/Starlight | Annie January</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Room Temperature Moscato</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Annie fell down onto the couch with a sigh. “Finally all tuckered out.” Janine was a cool kid, yeah, but at the same time she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>a kid</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which meant that she could output more energy in one afternoon than most stars could over the course of their billions-of-years-long lifespan. Janine was the sort who sort of shrunk into a red dwarf after burning through her sugar high, but Annie had also babysat a few who went nova.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those had been short-term gigs, to say the least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After taking a few luxurious moments of laziness, Annie stood back up and started looking for her backpack. “Alright, time to get a head start on stats.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she started working on untangling the precise nature of thermodynamics, Annie spared a few glances to take in the Milk’s home. As suburban cookie-cutter construction went, it wasn’t bad: a decent-sized living room sporting a gas fireplace, a nice kitchen separated from a dining room by an island, a two-car garage, four bedrooms, two baths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> unusual about it were the smaller things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything was symmetrical. Not in the sense that one side of the room looked exactly like the other, but in the sense that there was a balance to the decor that was almost eerie. Each wall had the same number of photos hung on it, the furniture all had an odd number of cushions, all of the glasses and plates matched, and the books were arranged by size rather than author or title. Little things, but overall decidedly unusual for the home of a construction foreman, his wife who worked as a restaurant manager, and a child of nine. There weren’t any stains, any surfaces with a thin layer of dust, no barely-there fingerprints on the windows...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a house so picturesque it was hard to believe anyone actually lived in it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On her hourly break from studying (a necessary limit to prevent her mind from frying) Annie went up into the second-floor bathroom. There, poking around while looking for some floss, she stumbled across the shelf of medications. Though she tried to let her eyes brush over the labels without absorbing the information, too many years of skim-reading and dealing with her own neuroses via medication sparked partial recognition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After getting the last of the food debris out of her teeth, Annie’s curiosity got the better of her decency and she went to Google.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Most of the stuff was fairly standard fare for an upper-middle-class adult with decent health insurance: blood pressure moderators (Marvin’s, she assumed), estrogen supplements (probably Monique’s, but she wouldn’t judge), and some brand-name anti-depressants (who knew). These were the everyday crazy pills people took to make being alive in the twenty-first century halfway bearable, and Annie had felt a twinge of recognition as she entered their names into the search bar anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last on, however, that one told a story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Paroxetine was used for a lot of things. It could treat PTSD, major depressive disorder, panic disorders, premenopausal dysmorphic disorders, but the gut-feeling of </span>
  <em>
    <span>rightness</span>
  </em>
  <span> that the letters oh, see, and dee spelled out clicked like a bullet into a firing chamber. It wasn’t that Marvin or Monique couldn’t have one of the previous disorders (or, more likely, have multiple at once) but rather that being able to ascribe a </span>
  <em>
    <span>name</span>
  </em>
  <span> to the oddity around her lifted a weight from Annie’s shoulders that barely knew was there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was neat. Pathologically neat, but just neat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annie got why Marvin hadn’t talked about it. No one who’d had to take meds for anything wanted to talk about in-depth unless they were either drunk, more nuts than a bag of almonds, or protected by patient-client confidentiality (and even then, sometimes it felt like half of Annie’s therapy sessions were little more than paying someone to make small-talk with her for an hour). No one wanted to get different treatment, either avoided like her brain waves were contagious or end up on the receiving end of a bunch of ‘well-meaning’ jibes, like any of the people poking at their mouths had ever had to put their hand far enough down to actually vomit, or knew what it was like to taste nothing but acid for an entire math class, or pass out as soon as you stepped through the door to your house because you were just so damn </span>
  <em>
    <span>exhausted</span>
  </em>
  <span> and in pain from the constant headaches and vestigial hunger pangs that you would trade what remained of your appetite for it all to just </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop for one minute</span>
  </em>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The front door </span>
  <em>
    <span>click</span>
  </em>
  <span>’d open. “We’re home!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annie started packing up her books. “Janine is all tucked in and everything. Teeth brushed, homework done, and backpack packed for school tomorrow. She stayed up a little bit later reading, but when I checked in on her thirty minutes later she was out like a light.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and smiled at the two, still dressed in their Date-Night best. A plunging black dress for Monique, and a deep purple shirt and dark slacks for Marvin. “A quiet evening, nice and boring.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Monique clucked her tongue. “Don’t sound so cheerful about it. You figure a little excitement every now and then would be a good thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Boring means nothing’s on fire, and that’s a good thing,” Marvin said, holding one hand out in front of him and the other to the side. Annie accepted the bro-hug, and when she stepped back she was holding a small fold of twenty-dollar bills. “Thanks for looking after our girl.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No problem,” Annie said, patting him twice on the shoulder before heading over to Monique for the customary air/cheek kiss they shared before she left. “Same time next week?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know us so well,” Monique replied, matching the dry smooch with one of her own. “Have a nice night!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annie shrugged, already imaging the taste of the Charleston Chews in her freezer and the bottle of wine Huey had promised to bring over. “You know what? I think I will.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Whiskey from the Bottle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Butcher</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Billy looked out over the lake. “You ever want to go fishing, son?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not really.” Billy didn’t need to look away from the lake to picture the slight shrug of Ryan’s shoulders. “I think I’d feel bad for the fish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Of course you would. You’re Becca’s kid. You’d feel bad about stepping on a spider, you twat.</span>
  </em>
  <span> There was that familiar pang, the tug at the part of his chest he’d long since mostly stopped paying attention to, and which made him feel a little better every time it hurt. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not a complete bastard yet</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Billy shrugged himself. “Figured I’d ask. I hear it’s what dads do here in the colonies.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh, we haven’t been a colony for centuries.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He slapped Ryan’s shoulder twice. Well, slap was a word for it. He’d have called it a ‘tap’ or a ‘brush,’ but Ryan called them slaps. Billy always put on the kiddie gloves when walking with Ryan, always tried to be ridiculously gentle, a joke to people like his father and his squad, because by being that gentle he was only ‘rough’ to the world outside the force. “No amount of time’s going to make this country anything more than an up-jumped bunch of farmers to me, son.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked down at his boy, and an entirely unprompted smile made his lips twitch. “Want to go play fetch with Terror?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was how these meetings usually went. They’d wander aimlessly around the park for a bit, trying to figure out how to talk to one another, and after mustering up enough courage to overcome his natural aversion to running away from any problem he couldn’t shoot Billy would default to a known winner: a dog. Kids loved dogs, and Terror loved Ryan. Part of that was the bacon strips Billy gave Ryan whenever they started a game of fetch, and the other part of it was that Ryan was a good kid. He was smart, creative, and not a cunt. He didn’t make fun of the other kids, didn’t switch his opinions whenever the schoolyard said to, and didn’t try to make the world prettier </span>
  <em>
    <span>or</span>
  </em>
  <span> grimmer than it actually was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe Billy thought he was still naive, but Billy knew he himself was a right bastard who didn’t believe in anything and Ryan was fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>eight</span>
  </em>
  <span>, basically an orphan, and the boy deserved to hope stupidly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It grew dark too quickly. Way too quickly. Billy wished it was winter, wished he could blame the speed at which the day passed on something as impossible to change as the seasons but no, it’d been a wonderful June day, filled with stick-throwing, ice cream, pizza, and terrorizing Boardwalk scam stalls into giving Ryan an un-rigged chance at winning some great stuffed beast, then feeling ridiculously proud when the boy struggled to walk under the weight of his spoils of war.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Billy had laughed and smiled more in one day than he usually did in a month, and it did his heart good to remember it could move like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nonetheless, when his phone buzzed in his pocket Billy began guiding Ryan back towards the park’s parking lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Billy and Ryan had danced this dance too long for it to be a surprise. The two of them had talked about why William J. Butcher would not be an adequate care-giver, why it would be best for Ryan to live with a foster parent behind more NDA’s than were signed at a military expo, and why Dad couldn’t be around for more than a day a month and why it wasn’t because work kept him away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(They didn’t talk about Ryan’s biological father, because that piece of shit shaped like a human wasn’t worth the words spent on him.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, Billy walked Ryan back to where Grace was waiting, trying not to walk too slowly or too quickly, wishing he were stable enough to make a proper home for the kid and knowing he could never give up the fiery ball of hate which lay right next to muscle that only twitched when he thought of Becca.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped at the edge of the parking lot. “Well, I think this is my stop, lad. Remember the only rule worth a damn? On three. One. Two...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be a cunt,” they said at the same time, and another twitch pulled at Billy’s lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s my boy,” he said, kneeling down and pulling Ryan into a hug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the three heartbeats where they were together, Billy almost thought he could be human for a day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the heartbeats ended and he let go. “Alright then. Same time next month? Little more formal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Ryan replied, some of the happiness fading away. “The graveyard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Billy echoed, images of carved stone flickering, a slight ringing starting in his ears. “Yeah, it’s the anniversary. Might not be as much fun as today, but...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Billy trailed off, trying to focus on Ryan’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Ryan said, snapping Billy out of his fugue. “I’ll bring a picnic basket.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.” After a short pause, Billy hugged his son again. “Be seeing you, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They parted after that, a jagged, compound fracture of a goodbye, but Billy had never known how to properly break things off. He’d chase at something, worry it until it either tore to shreds or escaped his teeth, and then worry at something else. It’d been an endless cycle of pursuit, savagery, and more pursuit that he’d repeat until he died, and then Becca had turned it all upside-down, inside-out, and all he’d wanted afterwards was a quiet suburban house, PTA meetings, and Fourth-of-July barbeques where he could berate his neighbors in good faith.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except he hadn’t gotten that, had he?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Grace had driven Ryan away, Billy pulled out his phone and hit the second speed dial.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Butcher?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s Father Christmas em n’ em. Who’s been naughty this year?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve got a Congressman up in South Dakota who’s been blocking labor legislation for the past six years. This time, though, a decision to vote against increased environmental regulation might coincide with the release of a series of key photos of him balls-deep in a Maine Coon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A person dressed up as a Maine Coon, but I don’t think his constituents are going to care too much about whether or not it’s actually crime.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well then, figure it’s time I slipped my way down his chimney and left a steaming deuce on the mantle.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You always give me such pleasant things to think about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ho ho ho, cunt.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you, my editor. You know who you are &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Cider, Gin, and Cognac</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Frenchie, Monique, and Kimiko.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Winnebago by Gryffin, Feat. Quinn XCII &amp; Daniel Wilson plays in the background.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“There’s a man who I think... is high.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last words were whispered, like being inebriated was somehow a moral failure. It was a more-than-common sentiment among the bourgaise </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucks</span>
  </em>
  <span> who somehow discriminated between their dependencies on sex, drugs, and rock and roll and the basic substance abuse that required to not blow one’s own head off every morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well of course he is high, this is a dispensary! What do you think we are dispensing, breakfast rolls?” Frenchie asked, gesticulating wildly, pitching his voice to the back of the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The well-dressed man cringed under the sudden attention, but persisted in his complaints, much like a small, rat-like dog that had challenged a German Shepard to a fight and knew it was about to be a snack. “It’s unprofessional to have an intoxicated member of the public in your workplace—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you know he is not a member of my staff, hmm? How do you know he is not participating in a quality-control test? How do you know he is not simply tired and completely sensible? Have you done anything to figure out whether your accusations are at all accurate!?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a solid five seconds, Frenchie rode the wave of having struck the Man in the face, a palpable hit that could echo through the eons and inspire rebellion against the capitalist superstructure that entrapped so many. For those five seconds he could see the world for what it truly was, an overlapping series of spheres just off-center from one another, like so many records played at the wrong speeds which came together into coherency only when an appropriate mindset was applied to their chaotic melody.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For five second, Frenchie was God.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Caleb, back by the racks of pre-rolled J’s, raised his hand. “Bro, I am actually high.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frenchie sighed. “Kimiko, find his keys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey man, I know the rules!” he said, even as a short Japanese girl appeared behind him and began patting him down. “I’ve got a friend in the parking lot, he’s going to be driving me back, why’re you hassling me like this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seconds later a ring of keys had appeared in Kimiko’s hand, and Caleb groaned. “Come onnnnnnn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frenchie clicked his tongue and held up one hand. Moments later the keys had slapped into it, and he was back to schmoozing mode. “I am terribly sorry </span>
  <em>
    <span>monsieur</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so terribly sorry, let me make it up to you with some free samples of our </span>
  <em>
    <span>finest</span>
  </em>
  <span> product. These premium marajuana cigarettes release the THC at a manageable, yet enjoyable rate, which will enable you to remain somewhat lucid while entertaining even the most discerning guests. I have used them many times myself even, to remain calm when talking to investors you see...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Each day had an event like that, where Frenchie would think that he had a grasp on the world, then be proven abjectly wrong, typically in such a manner that implied that he was either mentally incompetent or simply a moron.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d never deny the later, but the last person to use the r-word in the Jay’s Nest had been hauled out back, beaten into the ground, and informed in no uncertain terms that attempting to return to the premises would result in a far more final parting. Serge had known people who couldn’t add two and two to get four, who could barely string together a whole sentence in </span>
  <em>
    <span>any</span>
  </em>
  <span> language, let alone English, and would still give you the shirt off their back if you asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What did it matter that they spoke funny?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When twelve-thirty rolled around, he sounded last-calls. At one the shop door was locked, and at one-thirty he was relaxing in the passenger seat of that week's sedan, enjoying a toke to the tune of Truckin’. Kimiko had disappeared as soon as shift was over, and he was proud that the first thing he felt after seeing her sign-out was worry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’ll be fine,” Blanche said. Her eyes would be on the road, but at this point she knew him well enough to deduce his thoughts from behind a sheet of lead. “She doesn’t have a record, and even if she did no pig’s going to be able to tell one Asian chick from the next. Plus, she’s sneaky. We’ve got nothing to worry about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frenchie sighed. “I know that, </span>
  <em>
    <span>mon cher</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but I don’t feel it. It does not </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> true to me that a young girl would be safe at night, both because it makes no sense and because I do not wish it to be so. I do not...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gestured at the windshield, then gave up. “I do not wish for a girl to be as comfortable with violence as I was, </span>
  <em>
    <span>oui</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just girls?” Blanche asked, a dangerous note in her voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is not like that!” he insisted, twisting in his seat. “I would be just as worried if Ryan were to show up knowing how to shoot like his father, or if Huey were to ask me for an eight ball of coke, or if any of the people we know who are not monsters were to try and do something evil! It is not that they cannot, should the time call upon them, but that I do not wish it to be so!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sucked angrily at the joint, willing for the chemicals to ravage his mind before his thoughts flew out of control. “I wish to believe I am among the worst parts of this world, and that my life is a rare one, </span>
  <em>
    <span>non</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The car slowed to a halt, and the song cut out. “If wishes were fishes, beggars would eat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frenchie narrowed his eyes, attempting to untangle the sentence. “Is this a silly thing that makes more sense in English?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s something my Mom used to say,” she said, ending that line of inquiry. “Whatever she’s doing, we’ll be here for her when she’s done doing it, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frenchie got out of the car, savoring the moment of dizziness, holding the sensation of weightlessness while on solid ground at the forefront of his mind, and nodded. “Of course. Now then, what’s for dinner.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thai, a bottle of wine for each of us, and a Resse Witherspoon movie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Legally Blonde?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know me so well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only because you share, </span>
  <em>
    <span>cherie</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. A Sea Breeze from the Bottom Shelf</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW: Unhealthy sex.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was around the third break-up that Maggie decided to become a more serious alcoholic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d wished that she could say that the decision hadn’t been made lightly, that she’d carefully weighed the pros and cons of addiction, that there’d been a single part of her rational mind which had stared at the rows and rows of identical liquid liver killers on the shelves and said ‘This is a good idea.’ She wished the decision had been made to foster creativity (a la Hemmingway), that the result of all those bottles of whiskey would be the next great American novel, or a Broadway screenplay, or an Oscar-nominated film about Love and Death and all that shit the critics went gaga for, regardless of whether or not it had any semblance of reality reflected within it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Maggie had to deal with too many lies already to add more to the pile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The vodka barely had a name. It was a local brand, with a label just distinct enough to be Not-Smirmoff, and had probably been filtered by a Brita. The cashier had raised an eyebrow as a woman with a week’s worth of groceries on her face in makeup and a watch worth more than some people’s cars picked up a bottle which would probably be best used to peel paint instead of ingested, but at a Midwest Walmart the rule of Iowa Nice was supreme: ‘Don’t start none, and let people suffer in peace.’ If only it covered gay people, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a two hour drive back to Chicago. There’d been a department store not two blocks away, and even if the same bottle would’ve cost double there Maggie hadn’t remembered the last time she’d cared about the price tag on literally anything. No, she’d gone to the countryside to escape prying eyes, to dodge wannabe ‘journalists’ who figured they could get a settlement when she eventually lost it and punched them out of her face, to avoid having to put on yet another smile she didn’t feel for a young girl who hadn’t learned that being pretty was just about the only thing a woman had going for her, and even if ‘Queen Maeve’s’ charm had lasted longer than most that horrifying three-zero was just around the corner, and Maggie didn’t know what she was going to do afterwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All that, and it made the tiny chance of running into her one serious ex in a city of two point seven million disappear, and that lack of anxiety was almost a drug of its own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A splash of cranberry juice, a dab of grapefruit juice, and a more-than-generous amount of the blessedly-nameless vodka later, and she was idly swiping away on her phone, methodically working her way into oblivion. Being rich, bisexual, and hotter than a fucking sun god usually meant that getting a one-night stand was a matter of time, and over the course of her time on the app she’d begun to grow more discerning. It made her feel like less of a slut when she swiped left occasionally, and getting rid of some of the bigger creeps had meant fewer awkward calls to the police while washing her bloody knuckles in the hotel sink.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s a match!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Maggie stared dispassionately at the profile. A bi m/m couple, looking for a unicorn. 420 friendly. Capricorns. So many words, conveying so little meaning, that even a fifth in she didn’t care about them. Maybe they were nice people. Maybe they were assholes. Maybe they were just two frat boys pretending to be a bi m/m couple so they could double penetrate someone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Heyyy!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You free tonight?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m only in town for the weekend...</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We’re just coming back from the club</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Still up for some fun though ;)</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maggie sent them the address of her suite, then threw back the last of the drink before getting to work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The desk staff would have to be alerted to her visitors. They’d need condoms, lube, and some Mr. Blue. Just in case. Also, Maggie had to get into the mood, and that took a little extra time with strangers. Not that she couldn’t, just that...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was harder than with Elena.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After calling down with the names and pictures of her guests, Maggie started setting the scene.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Condoms on one table, lube right next to it. Drink. Her day clothes in one drawer, lingerie on her person. Drink. Throw a sheet thrown over the full-length mirror, light some candles. Drink. Drink some water, check her phone, realize she’s still got a few minutes before they’ll arrive. Drink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Decide to think of Elana, start early, and try to ignore the grimy feeling in her gut as heat begins to pool, as the door creaks open, and she begins to chase a moment of ego-shattering that will let Maggie forget just how little of her is left inside ties of lace, money, and secrets she will die to keep.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Milk</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Homelander.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“—and that, ladies and gentleman, is why you can trust Vought.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>John smiled, basking in the shower of applause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is what power felt like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>John left the stage, leaving the bean counters and lawyers to hash out the details. Lords did not concern themselves with the tasks of peasants. They would finesse the words on paper which defined the consequence of his speech, turn sentiment founded in other minds and watered by his voice into legislation, into change, into </span>
  <em>
    <span>dollars</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Too many thought that power lay in the ability to nail a bullseye from a hundred meters, and while John enjoyed a trip to the range as much as the next red-blooded American he also knew that there were limits to the power of a bullet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot</span>
  </em>
  <span> of bullets, however, one could change the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few more hours of glad-handing, smiling to the right people, and whispering to the wrong one, John left the afterparty, pulled out of the parking lot in that week’s BMW, and started for the graveyard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t a famous place of rest. Madelyn had specifically requested somewhere out of the way, and out of all the stipulations in her will that one had been the easiest to accommodate and explain. The headstone was similarly dull, a small slab of grey stone etched with her name and lifetime.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All in all, the perfect resting pace for a suburban mother who came to the position late in life, if not for a high-ranking executive of one of the most profitable arms companies in history.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stock value has risen by eight, nine, seven, and nine percent each quarter of the past year,” he said, pointedly not looking down. “We’ve bought up the majority of our competitors, and have begun to make inroads against Chinese manufacturers. The private companies are being obstinate, but the national military has given some of our samples more than favorable reviews.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve also begun to take a more direct hand in securing the more basic assets. Raw ore, property, and people.” John hated coming here. He had to, to keep up the image of the filial son, not literal but decidedly spiritual, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed airing these words. “National leaders are being backed, both financially and directly, while our acquisitions department has made a point of ensuring that Vought does not pay rent. We’ve also begun recruiting much more aggressively, from undergraduate institutions and the existing labor market, and a few recent labor law changes have allowed us to snipe former Lockheed Martin employees.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smirked. “Managed to get the fucking liberals on my side with that last one. Everyone loves a Man who works for the working man.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stone did not talk back to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re kid’s alright. He’s with a normal couple. White, straight, rich, married and not cheating on one another. All the things I didn’t have.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bolt of rage struck John, so strong it made him want to kill something. “And they took Ryan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His lip twitched, like a fishhook swung by an overeager child had caught in it and was about to mar a twenty-thousand dollar work of art. “My child. You know. The one you never told me about. Butcher has him now. Has a </span>
  <em>
    <span>restraining order</span>
  </em>
  <span> against me. Me! America’s goddamn golden boy!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>John caught the next words in his throat, took a breath, and concentrated the rage. Words could carry in the wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This all could’ve been avoided, you know?” he said lightly, letting the thoughts escape him like the steam from a pot. “You could’ve told me about this. If you’d told me right away I could’ve gotten on screen, done my thing, and then everyone would love Ryan without thinking for a </span>
  <em>
    <span>second</span>
  </em>
  <span> about his mother. Hell, I could’ve married Clara and we could’ve pretended he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>our</span>
  </em>
  <span> kid! There were so many ways this could’ve gone right...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>John lifted his fists, screwed up his face, and tensed every muscle in his body. “And not </span>
  <em>
    <span>one</span>
  </em>
  <span> of them happened.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the fury had burnt low enough that it could simply merge with the underlying layer of hate, John found himself speaking again. “You. Are. Gone. And I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>still</span>
  </em>
  <span> not free of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was all he could do to refrain from pulling out his gun and shooting at the headstone until he felt better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Besides, it hadn’t helped the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>John left. He went back to his empty house, built in the past three years and armored like a fortress. He went back to his guns, strong enough to blow through concrete and numerous enough to arm a militia. He went back to his life, crafted from cradle to present, meticulously set up for maximum success and executed upon perfectly. He would then make himself a tray of chocolate chip cookies, pour a tall glass of skim milk, and consume them mechanically as he stared at FOX News, absorbing their talking points and conspiracy theories for repetition at the following day’s rally. After brushing his teeth, John would then spend one hour reading from the next text on the Boston Globe’s list of Most Important Books of the 20th Century. It had substantial overlap with the List of Great Books, but John refused to skip the repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After putting away his reading glasses, setting the book aside, and turning off the bedside lamp, John would simply stare at the darkness, trying his best to imagine nothingness, before the void inevitably took him.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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